“It is of importance, for the sake of the Family, that the world should think our relations all they should be, and that I should not seem to throw any doubt upon your innocence. On the other hand, I want to protect myself as far as possible....”
“Are you afraid of me, Bernard?”
“Afraid? No: I merely regard you with horror. But,” he went on: “I shall waste no time; what I am saying, I say once and for all: we shall leave this place to-morrow and go and live near by in the Desqueyroux house: I will not have your aunt living with us. Your meals will be brought to your room by Balionte. You are forbidden to enter any other room: but I shall not prevent you going for walks in the woods. On Sunday we shall be present together at High Mass in the Church of Saint Clair. You must be seen walking with me: and on the first Thursday of the month we shall go in an open carriage to the fair at B——, and to visit your father, as we have always done.”
“And Marie?”
“Marie leaves to-morrow with her nurse for Saint Clair, and after that my mother will take her to the South. We will invent some reason of health. You can hardly have supposed she would be left with you? We must put her in safety, too! If I had gone, she would have had the property when she was twenty-one. After the husband, the child ... naturally!”
Thérèse had got up: she stifled a cry:
“So you think it was for the pines that I....” So among the many secret springs of her action, this imbecile had not been able to discover one; and he invented the lowest....
“Why, of course: for the pines ... what else? I defy you to produce another motive.... However, it is of no importance and no longer interests me; I ask myself no more questions. You are nothing: all that exists is the name you bear, alas! In a few months, when every one is convinced of our good relations, and Anne has married young Deguilhem, ... you may be aware that the Deguilhems are insisting on some little delay and asking for time to think matters over ... then I shall at last be able to go and live at Saint Clair: you will stay here. You will be neurasthenic, or something....”
“Mad, perhaps?”
“No, that would injure Marie. But we shall find plenty of plausible reasons.... And that is all.”